Production Costs of Aircrafts/Helicopters

There are lot of informations about one country buys XXX Attack Helicopters from another country for the total costs of XX Mln/Bln USD.

The problem is when comparing one information with the another how much one unit would cost there are diffrent costs.The point is often such reports wich are reffering to dealings don't provide often and reliable sources about what kind of deal and its transfers it's inclueding, like extra parts,engines,teaching personal,personal to teach maintenance for foreign mechanics, and so on.

Also i don't believe that Attack Helicopters have a standard price per unit for every willing buyer.Since it's a question about buisness i think the Unit costs can variate from customer to customer.Not all cows giving exactly 2 liters milk, others give more so i think they will be milked when they could manage this.

So the question is about the Unit costs for the developing country wich should have a moderate prize per unit.

So here is the question to the community wich maybe has more reliable sources about the actual costs per Unit for all Attack Helicopters you could know.

I mean there are sources wich claim that Mi-28N costs about 8 Mln USD per unit and other claims it costs 45 Mln USD (not ruble).

Does anyone know the production and costs for Mig 29SMT or M2, and the MI-35????? any info would be great. I know the cost can vary any export costs or sales to Russian armed forces would be great. I personally think these two are a must have in any basic or advanced armed forces. Any info would be great.

GarryB wrote:It is no uber 5th gen super fighter, but it is fully multirole and you can buy a wide range of air to air and air to ground weapons for it.

Attach something like Damocles or the new targeting pod they are developing for the MiG-35 and MiG-29M2 and you would have an aircraft every bit as good as any modern in service western aircraft.

nice

i think Russia should try and push sales of Mig-29SMT/M2, as well as SU-27, SU-24. Firstly the Mig-29SMT/M2 would be ideal to for airforces on a smaller budget, and once sold means that you effectively have them tied to maintainence, repair, and spare parts costs, as well as taking away potential sales opportunities from other countries, apart from China no other country can really offer such a decent aircraft at a decent price and you also have Russia's no nonsense approach to selling military equipment. I might wrong in saying this but even if china offered a cheaper aircraft i am still dubious to the quality of it.

As for the Su-27 and Su-24, both upgraded to SM and M2 would still make them attractive for foreign buyers while it would give Russia a chance to replace them with Su-35 and Su-34.

do you or anyone know whats likely to happen with MI-24's? i remember reading that most are coming to the end of their life. And it seems Russia are only replacing a small number with Mi-35, but i could be wrong, 11 Mi-35's have been delivered every year for the last 3 yrs to the Russian airforce.

They won't take all Mi-24's out of service at least not within next 5 years, what they will do is modernize even more after the fleet park of Mi-28 has reached the wanted number, since the Mi-24 is an absolute unique helicopter they will need it for lot of different missions.

Werewolf wrote:They won't take all Mi-24's out of service at least not within next 5 years, what they will do is modernize even more after the fleet park of Mi-28 has reached the wanted number, since the Mi-24 is an absolute unique helicopter they will need it for lot of different missions.

Huh? I have not seen any plans whatsoever that they intend to modernize legacy Hinds- especially since new attack helos are arriving in large numbers.

They bought 48 new Mi-35s in any case, so those will be around for a while.

Werewolf wrote:They won't take all Mi-24's out of service at least not within next 5 years, what they will do is modernize even more after the fleet park of Mi-28 has reached the wanted number, since the Mi-24 is an absolute unique helicopter they will need it for lot of different missions.

Huh? I have not seen any plans whatsoever that they intend to modernize legacy Hinds- especially since new attack helos are arriving in large numbers.

They bought 48 new Mi-35s in any case, so those will be around for a while.

Not now, but there also no other plans but to exchange the oldest versions and the oldest by fuselage Mi-24's that are currently stored with newly build Mi-35, but there are few hundreds that have a fairly young age and haven't reached their maximum lifespan yet and since they do not plan to withdraw all stored hinds i doubt they will just scrap them and stay with 130 Mi-24VM2's.

Werewolf wrote:They won't take all Mi-24's out of service at least not within next 5 years, what they will do is modernize even more after the fleet park of Mi-28 has reached the wanted number, since the Mi-24 is an absolute unique helicopter they will need it for lot of different missions.

Of course the Mi-24 is a unique helicopter but surely it would be better to start to replace them with Mi-35's over the course of the next few years, then they could sell the Mi-24's to foreign markets who have already have Mi-24's The Mi-35 is so much better, unless of course they have plans in place to design and build and new helicopter with the similar unique design and are using the mi-35 as a stop gap to replace end of life Mi-24;s intil the design is complete. I hope in the future they don't scrap the unique design of the hind, my fear is they will go down the route of having dedicated attack heli's like Mi-28, armour scout Ka-52, and transports like Mi-17 and this will be done to stream line things. i hope if doesnt happen. The Hinds design is ideal in inserting special forces in hostile areas, the armour and fire power cant be match by transports such as Mi-17. And when its not being used as that you still have it as an attack heli/gunship. I personally think if your armed forces only had to have one type of attack heli then this should be the one as as it versatility is greater than Mi-28 etc.

TR1 wrote:Well, Russian AF is buying 16 MiG-29SMT for 473 million dollars...but that was before the Ruble crashed. So who knows what the cost is now.

Imo it's going to be much less, equivalent to say 350-400 million? They are priced in roubles not dollars, i doubt the rouble fall makes any significant difference, they are not importing anything to build those MiGs so i can't see why their price in roubles should change.

TR1 wrote:Well, Russian AF is buying 16 MiG-29SMT for 473 million dollars...but that was before the Ruble crashed. So who knows what the cost is now.

Imo it's going to be much less, equivalent to say 350-400 million? They are priced in roubles not dollars, i doubt the rouble fall makes any significant difference, they are not importing anything to build those MiGs so i can't see why their price in roubles should change.

Because prices have changed in Russia. MiG can't just pay the exact same amount to its workers, or assume its production costs/subcontractor orders will stay identical in rubles. If they do not re-negotiate the price, they will lose money on this contract.

TR1 wrote:Well, Russian AF is buying 16 MiG-29SMT for 473 million dollars...but that was before the Ruble crashed. So who knows what the cost is now.

Imo it's going to be much less, equivalent to say 350-400 million? They are priced in roubles not dollars, i doubt the rouble fall makes any significant difference, they are not importing anything to build those MiGs so i can't see why their price in roubles should change.

Because prices have changed in Russia. MiG can't just pay the exact same amount to its workers, or assume its production costs/subcontractor orders will stay identical in rubles. If they do not re-negotiate the price, they will lose money on this contract.

It really all depdends. But that seems very cheap upgrade costs.

That said, are there any further orders for more MiG-29 upgrades and new ones? Any word on MiG-35?